Buck Showalter looked at the Yankees’ lineup Tuesday, and with a four-hour rain delay still in front of him, the Orioles’ manager had plenty of time to contemplate the seventh and eighth slots in the batting order.

“They are not playing one of the great players ever in Alex Rodriguez, and you look up at third base and they have a six-time Gold Glove winner in Eric Chavez,” Showalter told me the next day, sitting in the visiting manager’s office at Yankee Stadium. “And I don’t care what kind of year he is having, when you have Jorge Posada batting eighth, it really hits you what kind of lineup they have.”

It is a reminder just how deep the Yankees are this year, perhaps as deep as at any time since the 1996-2000 dynasty years.

The quality length of the roster should be particularly valuable this month for two reasons:

1) With bodies weary and the schedule overloaded because of make-ups necessitated by the volume of rainouts, the Yankees should have enough able-bodied pieces available to not over-expose regulars. 2) As opposed to last year, the Yankees will not essentially concede the AL East in order to rest their regulars.

In 2010, the Yankees valued physically preparing players for October over first place. For example, pitchers such as Jonathan Albaladejo and the inexperienced Ivan Nova, neither of whom made the postseason roster, pitched frequently in the final 11 games as the Yankees went 3-8 and went from leading the AL East by 21⁄2 games to losing to Tampa Bay by a game — accepting the wild card, instead.

Thus, even if the Yankees clinch at least a wild-card berth and want to rest players in the waning days of this season, they still can pursue the AL East title with a better crop of complementary players — complementary players you can expect to be motivated since the quality depth has created lingering competitions for postseason roster spots at DH, the rotation and the bullpen.

As for the regular season, you could argue that one of the reasons the Yankees are ahead of Boston is because of superior depth. The Yankees have lost more than 1,300 games to the disabled list this year, the most in the majors.

But no matter who has been sidelined, the Yankees have played at a high level. For example, they have a better winning percentage when Rodriguez (.655) or Derek Jeter (.778) doesn’t start than when they do, and the Yankees are 7-0 when both are out of the lineup.

That reflects the good work done by Eduardo Nunez and Chavez, which also highlights the two places

these Yankees have augmented around their starry core: from a strong farm system and from excellent small signings of veterans.

“They did great on their ‘what ifs,’” Showalter said. By “what ifs” Showalter means the exercise every team goes through asking, “What if we lose (fill in the blank)? Who are we going to play?” The Yankees believed, for example, that Nunez could handle third if something happened to A-Rod, but he had little experience in the majors or at third, so they hedged by taking a flyer on the injury-prone Chavez. Both have worked out.

“Give their pro personnel department credit, all those guys they signed like Chavez, anyone could have done that, but they did,” Showalter said.

The Yankees took small one-year gambles on Russell Martin and Andruw Jones, and brought Chavez, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia and Luis Ayala to spring training on minor league deals. They added Cory Wade as the season went along.

Nunez, Nova, Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi have come from the system to be factors this season, and Brett Gardner, David Robertson and Francisco Cervelli continued to provide value.

“We did our trade deadline deals in the winter,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “Our supplemental moves kept us from having to trade assets in July for answers.”

The Yankees lack in two areas — a strong second lefty reliever and, notably, a no-doubt No. 2 starter behind CC Sabathia. But the Yankees believe the six starters they are using can, at minimum, keep them in a game down the stretch — which works well with that deep bullpen and long lineup.

In that way, these Yankees remind me of a more offensively potent version of the 1996 champions. That team also had suspect starting pitching (think of Kenny Rogers as its A.J. Burnett). But the in-season additions of Cecil Fielder, Charlie Hayes, Graeme Lloyd and David Weathers gave the club a lot of bats and bullpen arms to throw at problems. The pivotal Game 4 of the 1996 World Series — in which the Yankees rallied from 6-0 down to beat Atlanta 8-6 in 10 innings — was a testament to the depth. In relief of the bedraggled Rogers, Brian Boehringer, Weathers, Jeff Nelson, Mariano Rivera, Lloyd and John Wetteland teamed for eight innings of four-hit, one-run work.

That created cover for the Yankees to rally, in part, behind a bench that included Jim Leyritz (who hit the key three-run homer off Mark Wohlers), Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neill and Wade Boggs (who drew a bases-loaded walk in the 10th for the go-ahead run).

Joe Girardi, who was pinch-hit for by O’Neill and replaced by Leyritz in that 1996 Game 4, could be looking at a similar windfall of assets for his Yankees in these playoffs. A long roster already has elevated the Yankees this season, and promises to help keep them fresh and winning down the stretch. Soon we will get to see if being a deep team can enable the Yankees to make a deep playoff run.